The US military “maxed out” its defensive posture in the lead-up to the war in Iran, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday, in the wake of an Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia that reportedly destroyed an American E-3 Sentry radar plane and damaged several air refuelers. “The first thing we did was set up a defense and make sure our defensive capabilities were maxed out before any of this even started. That included fortifications as much as possible, but it also included dispersement [sic],” Hegseth said in a Pentagon press briefing, responding to a question about protecting US forces and strategic aircraft like the E-3. “If all of our people are in one place, you can imagine why that’s a big problem.”

FORTIFICATIONS!? which is why you're urgently looking for prefab bunkers now?

also what fucking dispersement when you had a whole bunch of E-3s just sitting around on the same airfield?

Hegseth is a actually the 1st in a new line of American weapons - the "guy who's so annoyingly obviously bullshitting that it makes the enemy die from rage-induced aneurysms when they hear the drivel coming out of his mouth"

“Alongside that dispersement is more and more bunkers … rapidly fielding that and improving those positions is a theater priority, no doubt. As are the air defenses, and the layered air defenses,” Hegseth continued. “So the defense of our troops and our assets is maxed.” Despite those efforts, on Friday Iranian missiles and drones rained down on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia and destroyed the E-3 and damaged KC-135 Stratotanker refuelers, according to Air and Space Forces Magazine. The strike also purportedly wounded a dozen US troops. (NPR reported Monday that a second E-3 was also damaged in the attack.) It’s the kind of potentially crippling attack US military leaders in recent years have stressed they’re tailoring formations to avoid.

Before the Iran conflict, a looming threat of conflict with China had spurred Air Force officials in particular to adopt a new approach to disperse deployed forces, a strategy dubbed Agile Combat Employment (ACE) in the service’s doctrine. Pentagon officials have emphasized the war in Ukraine has also provided valuable insight, such as the perils aircraft face on the ground following Ukraine’s successful “Spider Web” operation last year. Beyond Hegseth’s comments about “dispersement” it’s unclear if the Air Force specifically has been employing ACE concepts during the conflict in Iran. The war has seen some US aircraft operate from relatively distant bases, such as bombers that fly from the United Kingdom. The US is operating from from as many as 15 to 20 bases in the region, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Air Forces Central did not respond to a request for comment on its ACE posture or on the reported loss of the E–3. In the wake of the Friday Iranian strike, experts told Breaking Defense that while dispersing forces is certainly a prudent strategic measure, the attack underscores that ACE maneuvers alone would not be enough — which must be paired with a mix of passive and active defenses — and could be blunted by logistical realities on the ground as well as constantly advancing adversary capabilities like near-real time satellite imagery. The ACE concept “should significantly reduce the number of aircraft damaged in airbase attacks” by ensuring jets aren’t clustered together, Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, told Breaking Defense. She said ACE’s core concept of swiftly moving forces “frequently” should be doable given Tehran’s “relatively modest” daily drone and missile salvos. But she said the US needs “more hardened shelters for aircraft and a more creative approach to both posture and operations, which should include camouflage and things like decoys to deceive Tehran.”

ACE ‘Could Certainly Apply’

ACE was laid out in Air Force doctrine in 2022, which the service devised in response to shrinking numbers of air bases and “adversarial technological advances in pervasive intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and all-domain long-range fires.” The ACE approach, according to an Air Force document [PDF], “shifts operations from centralized physical infrastructures to a network of smaller, dispersed locations that can complicate adversary planning and provide more options for joint force commanders.” In practice, that would look like spreading forces out and quickly moving them between locations to keep adversaries guessing. “Historically, the [US Air Force] in the Gulf has concentrated large mixed wings at single bases — fighters alongside mobility and ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] aircraft — which is essentially the opposite of what ACE calls for,” Pettyjohn said. “ACE could certainly apply to Epic Fury, even if the threat scale is modest compared to what the USAF would face in the Indo-Pacific,” she said, referring to the Pentagon’s name for Iran operations. Tim Walton, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, noted that ACE is relevant even for large refueling aircraft like the KC-135, but that infrastructure limits bases from which those aircraft can operate. Refuelers, Walton observed, need access to bulk fuel stores not available at every location and require long runways for takeoff when carrying heavy loads of gas. Smaller aircraft like fighters, on the other hand, could access a greater number of airfields.

except of course, those smaller aircraft also have shorter ranges, so if they can't access the bases closest to the enemy and are thus reliant on aerial refueling in order to even be able to make it to enemy territoty, their higher potential for agility won't actually be fulfilled, and in practice they'll instead be hamstrung by the lower agility of the tankers

“Sustaining air operations under attack requires a mix of passive defenses (such as distribution, dispersion, early warning, camouflage, concealment, and deception, and infrastructure and logistics) and active defenses (such as ground-based air defenses and airborne air defenses),” he told Breaking Defense. Beyond the constraints of infrastructure, there’s also the question of the utility of the inherent subterfuge of the ACE strategy in an era of persistent, near-real time satellite imagery, according to Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ACE “loses some of its edge in an era of ubiquitous satellite imagery paired with AI tools that can identify targets in near real time. If it is sitting on the ground, it can be found. Any ground infrastructure for airpower has to be paired with layered air defenses — dispersal is not enough because there is really no place to hide,” he said in an email to Breaking Defense.

American planners still can't internalize that they're not the only ones with precision strike capabilities anymore

Iran’s Friday strike on Prince Sultan Air Base could be a “coincidence,” Swope continued, or Iran’s proficiency using satellite images for targeting has increased. That raises the question of whether Tehran could be receiving satellite targeting data from elsewhere. “A safe guess would be either Russia or China,” he said. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Hegseth acknowledged Iran’s strikes are benefiting from foreign assistance — perhaps similar to how the US provides Ukraine targeting data on Russian forces — and did not raise any consequences for doing so. “There’s some things adversaries are doing to provide info and intel that they shouldn’t. We’re aware of it,” Hegseth said. “One of the biggest principles you learn in the military is to not set patterns, predictable patterns. So commanders are working hard to adjust in real time with those systems and make sure they’re in the right places and not easily targetable.”

Instead of waiting for Tehran to agree, Trump can declare victory and impose his will.

April 2, 2026

In his address to the nation Wednesday night, President Donald Trump said that if there is no deal with Iran’s surviving leaders in the next two to three weeks, he will “bring them back to the stone ages.” Good. Trump does not need a deal to end Operation Epic Fury. In fact, he is much better off without one.

Rather than waiting for Iran to agree to the conditions he has put on the table, he can simply impose the peace terms he has set unilaterally.

Here’s how to do so in five steps:

1. Complete all remaining military tasks.

Trump said the war will “continue until our objectives are fully achieved.” So which tasks remain? Seize or destroy Iran’s fissile material so the regime cannot easily restart its nuclear program (or give what Trump calls its “nuclear dust” to terrorists for a dirty bomb). Take out all the remaining targets on the military’s list.

Implement the innovative plan that sources tell me Centcom Commander Adm. Brad Cooper has prepared to open the Strait of Hormuz by force, and then hand the mission over to a multinational armada made up of countries who receive oil from the strait, which must take responsibility for keeping it open.

Or, alternatively, the United States can charge a substantial “escort fee” for each ship passing through the strait, which would be waived for countries participating in the mission. And then, finally, either take control of Kharg Island, by seizing or blockading this linchpin of Iran’s energy export sector, or destroy it to cripple Iran’s ability to fund terrorist proxies and a military rebuild.

If the U.S. completes these tasks, it will have a stranglehold over Iran, and the regime will never again be able to hold the world’s economy hostage. U.S. military commanders believe that these objectives can be achieved in the next two to three weeks, but the determination of when the mission is complete should be conditions-based. Success matters more than speed.

2. Eliminate the Iranian leaders who were spared for the purpose of negotiations.

Trump reportedly asked Israel not to strike certain Iranian leaders so he would have negotiating partners. If those leaders refuse his terms of surrender, their existence has no remaining purpose. Trump should issue one last ultimatum, then unleash Israel to take them out in a final barrage of leadership strikes.

3. Unilaterally declare victory.

No ceasefire. No peace agreement. When Cooper informs the president that he has achieved all the military tasks set out for him, Trump should announce that he is suspending military operations.

4. Impose peace terms.

Trump should announce to the remnants of the regime that all the demands he put forward are now in effect and will be imposed by force if necessary. If Iran violates any of his terms — by trying to rebuild its nuclear or ballistic missile programs, for instance, or providing support for its terrorist proxies — the U.S. and Israel reserve the right to strike at will. Iran tests America’s resolve at its peril.

5. Bar Iran from firing on protesters and set conditions for eventual regime collapse.

Trump should inform the regime that the U.S. will tolerate no more massacres and executions. If the Iranian people take to the streets and the regime fires upon them, the units and leaders responsible will face elimination. Each time they kill innocent Iranians, the U.S. and Israel reserve the right to respond by killing Iran’s political and military leaders.

The threat of such strikes should hang over the regime like the sword of Damocles. It would be a game changer. Right now, Iran’s surviving leaders believe that Trump’s boot will come off their necks in a few weeks’ time. It may require a few surgical strikes after major combat operations have ended to disabuse them of that notion, but once they understand that a missile could fall on them from the sky at any moment for any violation of Trump’s terms, that pressure will begin to break the regime’s will and ability to rule.

It will also create space for the Iranian opposition to organize and challenge the regime. When Iranians see that their oppressors can no longer kill them with impunity, they will lose their fear and become bolder in challenging them. The combination of external military pressure from the U.S. and Israel and internal pressure from the Iranian people will fracture the regime and create an opportunity for Iranians to replace the regime’s murderous theocracy with a pro-American government that is an ally for peace.

This final element is essential to the long-term success of Trump’s Iran campaign. Forcing the regime from power in four to six weeks was never a military objective of Operation Epic Fury. But it is also true that if the current regime survives in some form, everything Trump accomplished in this war will be reversible. New leaders will take the place of those who have been killed, and capabilities that have been destroyed will eventually be rebuilt.

America’s respite from the Iranian threat will be temporary. And once that threat reemerges, there is no guarantee we will have a president with the courage of Donald Trump to repeat what he has done.

Operation Epic Fury will be a success for the ages.

As Trump put it Wednesday night, “Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks.” But the only way to make the success of Operation Epic Fury permanent is to create conditions for the regime to collapse. Trump told the Iranian people, “When we are finished, take over your government.” The bombs have done their work. Now Trump must help the Iranian people do theirs.

Tehran’s goal is to impose persistent economic and political costs until Washington concludes that continuing the war is not worth it. To achieve that, Iran is exploiting a gap in U.S. Air Force doctrine — the distinction between air superiority and air denial, and between the blue skies and the air littoral. So far, it is working. Air superiority — the control that permits operations at a “given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats” — is what the United States has achieved over southern and western Iran and is now working to extend eastward. That control allows large-scale strikes and freedom of maneuver at medium and high altitudes. As Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted on Tuesday, “Given the increase in air superiority, we’ve successfully started to conduct the first overland B-52 missions.” By that measure, the campaign has been a success. But the strait is still closed. Air superiority is meant to assure freedom of action not just in the air, but across all domains for the entire joint force. Air Force Doctrine Publication 3-0 is explicit on this point: air superiority “prevents enemy air and missile threats from effectively interfering with operations of friendly air, land, maritime, space, cyberspace, and special operations forces.” That includes the Navy’s ability to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. By that measure, the United States does not have air superiority where it counts.

lol. lmao. hoisted by their own doctrinal documents

it's really cool when we have just straight-up openly available clear definitions of stuff, which we don't bother to read and then proceed to make up our own, and argue endlessly about whether something meets or doesn't meet the definition, except since each one of us just made up their own definition we're effectively talking completely past one another. many such cases!

Iran’s drone and missile campaign has already forced American forces back. In 2003, the bulk of U.S. combat and support aircraft operated from forward positions in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia while carriers patrolled the Persian Gulf. Today, carriers increasingly operate from the Red and Arabian Seas while land-based airpower has shifted toward bases farther from the strait, leaving U.S. forces positioned for the high-altitude fight over Iran, not the persistent-close-in coverage the strait requires to keep shipping lanes open under continuous drone and missile threat. Iran’s strategy of air denial is why. Air denial is a strategy of contesting control of the air without achieving air superiority outright. It leverages the advantages of large numbers of low-cost and mobile systems employed in a distributed way to keep the air domain too dangerous, too costly and too uncertain for joint forces to operate. Critically, the barriers to achieving air denial are considerably lower than those required to gain and sustain air superiority, yet it can impose disproportionate costs. In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is putting this strategy into practice. Tehran is exploiting the air littoral above the strait, employing drones and missiles capable of reaching oil tankers and naval vessels in minutes. Iran has struck more than 20 commercial vessels in and around the strait since the war began, killing at least seven sailors. This action has effectively halted traffic through the strait, except for a handful of ships that Iran has let pass — in many cases, for a hefty fee. The U.S. Navy has reportedly declined requests from the shipping industry for military escorts, citing the ongoing threat.

Iran’s strategy appears to be working. Gas prices have risen a dollar a gallon in a month, U.S. stock markets have entered correction territory, and the White House is under growing pressure to wind down the conflict. Iran planned for exactly this. Tehran built this playbook, funded it, and watched it succeed. The lessons come straight from the Red Sea, where Houthi proxies used cheap, distributed drones and missiles to impose costs that more than 800 U.S. airstrikes between 2024 and 2025 could not eliminate. Now, Iran is running the same playbook over the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has no ready answer. Achieving and maintaining air superiority in the air littoral above the strait demands the very layered defense capabilities in which the Pentagon has systematically underinvested: large numbers of low-cost, attritable systems to continuously attack launch locations and dispersed manufacturing; mobile air defenses rapidly and persistently deployable near threatened waterways; low cost persistent airborne platforms capable of detecting and destroying waves of drones; and interceptors capable of sustaining high engagement rates without exhausting inventories. These are precisely the capabilities decades of procurement choices never built at scale, in favor of the small number of exquisite platforms that have performed so well in the blue skies above Tehran. The gap is not an accident. It is the result of choices. The Strait of Hormuz is one of their consequences. Addressing this gap requires building low-cost, attritable systems at scale to contest and control the air littoral — not in small numbers as an afterthought, after the high-end aircraft are bought and paid for, but as a core mission — which inevitably means scaling back legacy platforms. The window to absorb that lesson is open now, while the cost is measured in closed shipping lanes and rising gas prices.